Autumn Trees & Leaves Preschool Art + Science Project

These Autumn Trees & Leaves preschool art projects turned out so stunning that they make me love with fall even more!! We always do a leaves theme, and I have a preschooler and a kindergartener right now that both really love arts and crafts. This was the perfect way to tie a little science into their art and mix in the fall season!

The supply list seems a little long, but they are all really common items...you just have to run around the house and gather them all up!

Supplies:

* canvas board (we used 5"x7", but you could use any size...that's just what we had at home!)

* paint (we used blue, yellow, orange, and red)

* yarn

* cotton balls

* q-tips

* permanent markers (we used black, brown, and red)

* yellow felt (you could use red or orange or even green!)

* scissors

* real leaves

* tape

* glue

PREP: 

Cut little leaves out of the felt. These were very simple...I cut about 50 in 2 or 3 minutes. Gather everything together.

LESSON: 

(I like to read Leaf Man before we start our leaf projects!)

We started out with a brief science lesson and leaf observations. We talked about how the "veins" move food and water throughout the plant and we looked at where the veins were in a leaf. 

Then we used permanent markers to draw veins on the felt leaves. Even my 2-year old did a great job of putting veins on her leaves!

At this point we set the leaves aside to "make the forest."

I taped one end of the yarn to the back of the canvas board, and we wrapped the yarn around the board 5-6 times, making wider "trees" in some spots and narrower trees in others. I helped them tape the other end down as well.

I put paint out for them, and we had a brief color mixing lesson--I couldn't find any green paint today, so we used yellow with a dot of blue to make our own green.

Then the kids used a cotton ball to dip in the paint and "dab, dab, dab" on their canvasses! A lot of the dabbing turned into smearing "rainbows," but they all look marvelous anyway the preschoolers did it!

When they finished painting, we took off the yarn! Everyone loved how their "white trees" appeared!

I got the idea for using yarn-wrapped canvasses to make negative-space trees from The Pinterested Parent here!  I wanted to add leaves in, though, and made a couple other changes.  

Next we glued on the leaves that they made at the beginning of the lesson! I LOVE how this brought the project to life with a 3-dimensional feeling! It also gave a lot of movement to the trees--the girls talked about how some of their leaves were hanging on to the trees, others were falling through the air, and others were stuck to each other! Some even made it all the way to the ground!

My 2-year old (who thinks she's a lot older than a preschooler!) and I added dots and lines to some of the trees to make it look like bumpy or peeling bark. My kindergartener decided that she wanted her trees to have brown bark, so she used the brown permanent marker to color over all her white trees! 

It was completely opposite what I imagined, but I still love the effect it had! Seriously, I am waaaay in love with these leaf art - science projects!! I want to try making a grown-up version!

Are you doing a leaf theme? Or celebrating fall and falling leaves? I'd love to hear about your favorite projects! Be sure to check out our other leaf themed activities here!

Happy Educating,

Carla

Have you seen HEEP? It is a preschool homeschool curriculum! Learn more here!

I may share at any of these parties!

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